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Nasser Rabbat, ‘Islamic as a Field of Historical Enquiry’, AD Architectural Design, 74(6), 2004. Reproduced by permission of the author and publishers, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. AD Islam 018-023 31/8/04 3:40 pm Page 18

Islamic Architecture as a Field of Historical Enquiry

For many years, , as a field of historical enquiry, was hampered by its Orientalist roots. Architectural forms were classified by types and styles, and perceived as sedate, static and unevolving. Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture at MIT, demonstrates a dynamic way forward for the discipline.

Islamic architecture, long labelled with inaccurate and controversial qualifiers such as ‘Saracenic’, ‘Moorish’ or ‘Mohammedan’ was, until recently, among the least theoretically developed areas of enquiry in the field of architecture.1 Few studies existed that moved beyond the taxonomic, typological or stylistic framework on the one hand, or the religiously or culturally essentialist or environmentally deterministic on the other. These approaches reflected the enduring influence of the two major and interdependent scholarly traditions that dominated the development of the study of the history of Islamic architecture since its inception until the late 20th century. The first stemmed from the peculiar historiography of the study of Islam in the West that came to be called , and its various peregrinations both in the West and in the Islamic world. The second was the authoritative historiography of and architectural history which, until the 1980s, routinely portrayed the history of Western architecture as par excellence, while casting the architecture of other cultures in anthropological and ahistorical categories.2 The pioneering students of Islamic architecture were almost all European architects, artists and draftspeople who, from as early as the 1820s, travelled to the ‘Orient’ in the wake of the first European military interventions

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in search of adventure, employment and the equipped to, nor interested in, communicating the fantasy associated with this long mysterious substantial intracultural variety and purposeful land. Some worked for individual patrons who continuity within Islamic architecture, nor its conscious sponsored expeditions and study tours either as interaction with the architecture of other cultures, past an aristocratic recreation or for profit. Others and present. Instead, they set the stage for a self- worked for local or colonial authorities, which contained architectural discourse charting the history of were concurrently spreading their dominion in Islamic architecture as an endogenous and, seemingly, the various regions of the Islamic world and insular tradition that began with the of the needed the services of all classes of specialists of the Prophet in around AD 620, and to establish and maintain a new order in their inexplicably fizzled out with the dawn of the colonial age territorial possessions. And still others worked in the late 18th century. for universities or learned societies in the West This trajectory was academically and disciplinarily that were interested in the architecture of formalised when Islamic architecture finally became a specific areas or periods for scholarly or subject of study of art history. This happened slowly and religious reasons. gradually in the early part of the 20th century with the Like Orientalists in various other fields of establishment of the first academic chairs for the study enquiry, the early students of Islamic of history, which included architectural architecture became engaged in the vast history, in Western universities and research centres. enterprise of collecting, processing and The hegemonic conceptual framework of Western art interpreting data on all aspects of culture and history, which had its roots in the late 18th-century society in the Orient. They visited Oriental cities German and French theories of art, framed the intricate and sites (primarily in , Western , network of epistemological and cultural conventions the Holy Land and ), measured and that produced and used art historical knowledge. It also recorded and ruins, and illustrated constituted the only system via which an area of study these using all sorts of techniques from could gain legitimacy within art history. Moreover, it freehand sketches to exact controlled the scope and methods of all subdisciplines, projections. They also ferreted through the including Islamic architecture, and assigned them their limited available written sources to verify the slots in a chronologically, geographically and even historical details about the structures: date, ideologically prescribed hierarchy.4 provenance, patron, cost and the like. They then Accordingly, Islamic architecture was reduced to a produced impressive catalogues of series of set of prevalent characterisations – static, sensual and buildings, singular monuments, and ornamental being the favourite among them – that architectural and ornamental details that began stood in stark contrast to the self-conscious and to introduce to , and to the dominant historically evolving attributes frequently portrayed as classes in the Orient itself, the rich Islamic specific to Western architecture. Instances that did not architectural heritage that was hitherto almost fit into this division – for example, the shared classical totally unknown.3 heritage in the medieval and Europe, the The trailblazers were followed by several fruitful interaction between them during the Crusades, generations of architects, draftspeople and, and their similar historicising stances in the 18th ultimately, archaeologists, who expanded the century – were explained away as oddities or scope of the survey to , Persia, , aberrations provoked by singular historical and Arabia, and eventually penetrated circumstances. Opposite, top Figure 1: Book cover of Pascal- the faraway reaches of the Islamic world, such The limitations of this burdensome, scholarly lineage Xavier Coste, Architecture Arabe as or sub-Saharan Africa. Although were not seriously challenged until the 1980s. ou Monuments du Kaire mésurés et dessinés de 1818 à 1826, most of the surveyors were still European, natives Empowered by critical developments in cultural studies Firmin-Didot (Paris), 1839, of the Islamic world began to participate in the after the publication of Edward Saïd’s seminal book showing a distant view of framed within a highly process from as early as the first decade of the Orientalism in 1978, students of Islamic architecture ornamented archway of no 20th century. Before the middle of the century, began to question the validity of using geographic, discernible style. the terrain had been mostly mapped out, and historical, religious and cultural boundaries as Opposite, bottom with the nagging exception of , disciplinary frameworks. They also began to hesitantly, The 10th-century Bab al-Wazir at the Mosque of Cordoba (left), an most major buildings in the Islamic world had yet exuberantly, ease into the liberating space of theory example of the static, sensual and been measured, recorded and classified into and method, and to extend their domain of enquiry into ornamental in Islamic architecture, and a view of one of types and styles following a rather rigid dynastic hitherto neglected periods, areas and points of contact the interior courts of the 1354 periodisation, which is still with us today. with other cultures. The notions of uniformity, (hospital) of Arghun al-Kamili in (right), with its But despite their erudite and prodigious introversion, and cultural and religious determinism austere surface articulation. output, most early students were neither that long dominated the study of Islamic architecture

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discipline and practice of architecture in the Islamic world and beyond. Three main issues can be singled out as promising venues in the field’s current quest for critical research programmes. First is a claim for a dynamic historical framework. Piggybacking on other historical frameworks and other periodisations has clearly distorted the understanding of Islamic architecture for far too long. For example, classifying Islamic architecture along the dynastic sequence of Islamic began to lose their grip as more and more history – that is, to speak of Abbasid or Mamluk scholars turned to the multiculturalist method in architecture – has led to the disregard for the their enquiry. Some focused on the intercultural architecture’s autonomous evolution, since artistic and development of Islamic architecture over the last architectural movements rarely correspond to political 15 centuries, with its substantial connections to shifts. Dynastic periodisation has also resulted in the Late Antique Mediterranean, Iranian and needlessly privileging the role of the patrons in the Hindu-Buddhist cultures in the early periods and conception of architecture and its signification to the the European, Asian and African cultures of detriment of the designers and builders. In the same recent times.5 Others began to dip into the way, categorising Islamic architecture after the Western intracultural spaces – that is, zones within a stylistic sequence – Classical, Medieval or – given society at a given time that are shared by has subjected the development of Islamic architecture its diverse constituent groups – where people to the rhythm of another architectural tradition, though have always met and exchanged ideas, views, the two have only intermittently shared the same beliefs and practices and, in the process, trajectory. This has also meant that some attributes of created architecture. Islamic architecture have been glossed over when they Thus, the contributions of the various Islamic were named after formally, or conceptually, comparable fringe sects and esoteric religious orders, characteristics of Western architecture, of which Christian and Jewish denominations, Baroque Ottoman is the most conspicuous, even Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Hindus and others have though the similarity was mostly skin deep and started to be analysed as both instrumental historically unsubstantiated. components of a shared architectural language This terminological confusion has pervaded Islamic and as distinct expressions within its fold. The architecture to the point that any serious revision of the cumulative effect of these critical and methods and conceptual frameworks of the field have Above The main (archway) in the revisionist enquiries has been to set Islamic to begin with a critical analysis of chronological division madrasah of Sultan Qalawun in architecture well on its way to finally devising its and historical parallels. Furthermore, as any cursory Cairo (1284), a curious example of a basilical composition own epistemological and methodological historical investigation will demonstrate, other decisive inserted inside an iwan. contours, which will undoubtedly enrich both the forces – such as massive population movements, lingering national and tribal pride, theological and spiritual breakthroughs, not to speak of artistic, Dynastic periodisation has also resulted in structural and technological innovations – had a more profound effect on architecture in Islamic history than needlessly privileging the role of the mere dynastic change. But this does not mean that patrons in the conception of architecture dynastic nomenclature has to be totally thrown out. and its signification to the detriment of the Some terms seem to be reasonably fitting, especially when applied to the specific geographic area where a designers and builders. In the same way, truly dynastic architecture flourished, for example categorising Islamic architecture after the Umayyad or . Western stylistic sequence – Classical, In other instances, different designations need to be devised either because several dynasties followed the Medieval or Baroque – has subjected the same artistic paradigm – as in the case of the various development of Islamic architecture to the splinter dynasties in the early Abbasid period, or the rhythm of another architectural tradition, post-Seljukid small princedoms in Anatolia and – or a stylistic or typological rupture occurred in mid- though the two have only intermittently dynastic reign. It is very difficult, for example, to shared the same trajectory. pinpoint the difference in the architecture of the two successive dynasties, Ayyubids and Mamluks, in Cairo,

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although, otherwise, they were politically and hardly a change in their significance, but their use has socially particularly distinct. A flexible and expanded to permeate all religious structures where multireferential periodisation, with build monuments to their faith. chronologically open-ended boundaries that A third critical issue, and one concomitant with the account for the stylistic, dynastic and second point, is the dialogic dimension discernible in sociocultural overlaps, would provide the most Islamic architecture. In many of its celebrated examples, adequate historical setting for the study of this architecture appears to have been guided by a Islamic architecture. purposeful intellectual and aesthetic exchange within A second topic to explore is what can be its own multicultural environment or with past and called the multicultural quality of Islamic contemporary cultures near and far. Thus, Islamic architecture, a quality shared by all architectural architecture has interlocutors in Late Antique, Persian, traditions with a living history. No single model – South Arabian, Syriac, Coptic, Visigothic, Byzantine, or unique cultural reference for that matter – Armenian, Buddhist and Hindu architectural traditions, can be induced as the sole inspiration behind any and recently Modern and Postmodern European ones. of the famous examples of Islamic architecture. But rather than mimetic, the process seems to have Different tensions were at work. The people and been dialogic; that is, it went beyond one-way copying to groups concerned seem to have adopted, consciously engage the other architectural traditions in borrowed, resurrected and invented at every an interchange that resulted in original yet historically stage, and then reapplied the new creative and territorially grounded architecture. This is evident process to the next work. The buildings they in all Umayyad structures known to us today.6 But it is constructed reflected these choices in their also apparent in a vast array of other examples where forms, spaces and techniques, but also exhibited the cultural dialogue has visibly modified the formal a relative stability of their intentions and goals. outcome. These include medieval Persian and Central They referred to multifarious cultures, traditions, Asian towers; Seljukid and pre-Ottoman Anatolian ideals and images which their patrons, designers , madrasahs and tekkes; Egyptian, Syrian and and builders considered suitable, representative North African with basilical plans; Ghurid, or desirable, for themselves and for their cultures. Mamluk and Tughluqid architecture in India; and some The multicultural quality, however, goes recent modernistically sensible mosques such as the beyond colouring our perception of Islamic White Mosque of Visoko or the Parliament Mosque in architecture to conditioning the means by which , to list but a few. we can analyse it. Thus, not only were divergences from a putative norm common, but the very idea of an overarching conformism or an underlying essentialism do not seem to provide an adequate explanation for any of the bold and innovative buildings dotting the historical landscape across the Islamic world. Old research models will have to be abandoned and new methods designed to comprehend and structure the diverse alignments that have asserted, and reasserted, themselves in diverse and flexible combinations within the domain of Islamic architecture throughout its long history. Some experiments seem to have led to nowhere, and were dropped either immediately Right or after a few trials. Others were felt to be more Detail of the cast-iron porticoes of the Gezira in Cairo satisfactory and were adopted for longer (1864) designed by the German stretches of time. And still others became architect Karl von Diebtisch and presented as evidence of the cultural standards, used over and over again, capacity of Islamic architectural some even surviving the ‘pre-Modern’ periods elements to adapt to modern industrial production (top), and to become iconic markers in the revival of the Bhong Mosque near ‘Islamic architecture’ as a design category Rahimyar Khan, (completed 1983), a colourful, pursued by many practitioners today. The cases eclectic mix of and of the and as carriers of cultural seen by their builders as signifiers of Islamic architecture meanings are such examples. Not only did they with a Punjabi twist. complete the transition into modern times with

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Right and opposite The so-called Emir Saltuk Tomb (end of 12th century) in Erzrum, Turkey (right), a magnificent and unique example of multilevel dialogue with several architectural traditions – Soghdian Central Asian, Anatolian Armenian and Byzantine, and possibly late Romanesque, and (opposite) the Grand National Assembly Mosque in Ankara (1985–9), designed by the Çiniçi team; a bold adoption of modernistic gestures to the construction of the most traditional of Islamic architectural types – the .

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The effects of this dialogic exchange on the other cultural interlocutors were as pervasive as they were on Islamic architecture, despite the dominant art-historical framework that tends to ignore such exchanges and discourage any serious investigation into their scope and significance. Young scholars working on Byzantine, medieval European, Eastern Christian and Hindu architectural traditions are coming up with countless instances of direct and evidently conscious and intentional adaptations from Islamic architectural sources.7 Thus, to begin to critically understand the history of Islamic architecture, it is no longer adequate to study only its particular material, conceptual, social or religious contexts. Nor is it sufficient simply to identify its intra- or extra- cultural references and to decipher the various channels of appropriation they have traversed. Notes 1 Two recent surveys of the field make this clear: see Stephen Vernoit, The enquiry itself must be recast to account for ‘Islamic art and architecture: an overview of scholarship and collecting, c the decisive role of intellectual and disciplinary 1850–c 1950’, in Stephen Vernoit (ed), Discovering Islamic Art: Scholars, Collectors and Collections 1850–1950, B Tauris (London), 2000, pp 1–61; dialogue in the emergence and evolution of the Sheila S Blair and Jonathan M Bloom, ‘The mirage of Islamic art: variegated architectural traditions that we today reflections on the study of an unwieldy field’, Art Bulletin 85, 1, March 2003, pp 152–84. call Islamic. This interpretation shifts the focus 2 The most graphic illustration of this division is Sir Banister Fletcher’s from passive to dynamic exchange, and ‘Tree of Architecture’, which clearly assigns to non-Western architectural traditions, called nonhistorical styles, dead-end branches while introduces the notions of reception, translation preserving the trunk and growing branches to Western or historical and representation in reading and explaining the styles. The tree occupied the frontispiece of the first 16 editions of the book A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method for the unfolding of Islamic architecture as an active and Student, Craftsman, and Amateur, published between 1896 and 1961. For contributive component of world architecture. It a critical discussion of Fletcher’s dichotomous structure, see: Gulsum Baydar Nalbantoglu, ‘Toward postcolonial openings: rereading Sir also offers a methodologically solid framework Banister Fletcher’s History of Architecture’, Assemblage 35, 1998, pp 6–17. to consider how an open-ended search for 3 The most remarkable among these early studies are Pascal-Xavier Coste, Architecture Arabe ou Monuments du Kaire mésurés et dessinés expressive forms and designs has endowed de 1818 à 1826 , Firmin-Didot (Paris) 1839; Girault de Prangey, Souvenirs Islamic architecture, like other major de Grenade et de l’: monuments arabes et de Cordoue, Séville et Grenade, dessinés et mesurés en 1832 et 1833, Veith architectural traditions everywhere, with a et Hauser (Paris), 1837; idem, Essai sur l’architecture des Arabes et des vibrant historical self-consciousness. Mores, en Espagne, en Sicile, et en Barbarie, A Hauser (Paris), 1841; and Jules Goury, Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of Obviously, this conclusion stands in stark the Alhambra from Drawings taken on the Spot in 1834 & 1837, Owen contrast to the defamed Orientalist view that Jones (London), 1852; Prisse d’Avennes, L’art arabe d’aprés les monuments du Kaire depuis le VIIe siècle jusqu’á la fin du XVIIIe, A Morel identifies Islamic architecture with sedate, static et cie (Paris), 1877. and supra-historical forms, which has 4 See Zeynep Celik’s discussion, ‘, Orientalism, and the Canon’, Art Bulletin 78, 2, June 1996, pp 202–5. For a specific aspect see unfortunately and, possibly unwittingly, been Nasser Rabbat, ‘Writing the history of Islamic architecture of Cairo’, resurrected by some of the contemporary Design Book Review 31, winter 1994, pp 48–51. 5 The list is becoming quite long. A selection of the variety of approaches essentialist theoreticians and practitioners and areas includes: RA Jairazbhoy, "The Taj in the context of East looking for easily definable or loudly expressive and West: study in the comparative method’, Journal of the Warburg Courtauld Institute 24, 1961, pp 59–88; Patrick Connor, Oriental architecture. 4 Architecture in the West, Thames and Hudson (London), 1979; Gulru Necipoglu, ‘Suleyman the Magnificent and the representation of power in the context of Ottoman-Hapsburg-papal rivalry’, Art Bulletin 71, 3, Thus, to begin to critically understand the September 1989, pp 401–27; Sibel Bozdogan, ‘Journey to the East: Ways of looking at the Orient and the question of representation’, Journal of history of Islamic architecture, it is no Architectural Education 41, 4, summer 1988, pp 38–45; Cynthia Robinson, ‘Mudéjar revisitede: A prolegomena to the reconstruction of perception, longer adequate to study only its particular devotion and experience at the Mudéjar convent of Clarisas, Tordesillas, Spain (14th Century AD)’, RES43, spring 2003, pp 51–77. material, conceptual, social or religious 6 See Nasser Rabbat, ‘The dialogic dimension in Umayyad art’, RES43, spring 2003, pp 78–94. contexts. Nor is it sufficient simply to 7 See, for instance, Jerrilynn D Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990; Finbarr B identify its intra- or extra-cultural references Flood, ‘Pillars, palimpsests, and princely practices: Translating the past in Sultanate ’, RES43, spring 2003, pp 95–116; Michael W Mesiter, and to decipher the various channels of ‘Crossing lines: architecture in early Islamic South Asia’, RES43, spring appropriation they have traversed. 2003, pp 117–30.

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